Gastronomique: the Richmond's Rich Richmond.

Two food blogs, Life begins at 30 and Locavores have been organizing the Eat Local Challenge, an effort to support local producers and encourage awareness of what is on our plates, by eating for the whole month of August, food grown within some radius of where you live. We find it a noble goal. However, our participation could be summarized in our nodding with approval, maybe saying ‘you go, guys’, then eating Dungeness crab that has to be flown in from Alaska, or God knows where, since it is out-of-season locally. We would be apologetic about it, but there are only so many events one can participate in, and -thanks to SFist Sam’s masterly organized competition- we were busy impersonating Food TV’s Rachael Ray for a day.

As the saw goes, if you don’t go to the challenge, the challenge will come to you: we would be hard pressed not to eat anything local at The Richmond, a superb new restaurant in its namesake neighborhood. And you would be hard pressed not to eat anything good. Chef John Owyang honors his local ingredients by dressing them in deceptively simple preparations, which were almost always delicious.